


Bread and Circuses

by umadoshi (Ysabet)



Category: Newsflesh Trilogy - Mira Grant
Genre: Adopted Sibling Incest, Canon Disabled Character, Diners, F/M, POV First Person, Pre-Canon, beware of (zombie) dog, love is letting someone swipe food off your plate, sibling snark, theft of French fries, unorthodox job interviews
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-04
Updated: 2014-03-04
Packaged: 2018-01-14 12:14:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1266136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ysabet/pseuds/umadoshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Our little gathering of local Irwins broke up just past midnight. I was heading back to the van to call George and let her know I was on my way home when I heard my name.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Hey, Shaun!" I turned to see the guy who'd made the "twins" comment jogging after me. By the time he caught up I'd managed to remember his name. Part of his name. Dave Something.</i>
</p><p>Georgia and Shaun Mason don't have their own news site...yet. But sooner or later they're going to, and Dave Novakowski wants to be there when they do.</p><p>Set two years before <i>Feed</i>; no series spoilers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bread and Circuses

**Author's Note:**

> Beta work by wildpear.
> 
> Thanks to coastal_spirit and multiple people on my Dreamwidth flist for their geographical help with Maine and California, respectively. (All remaining errors are entirely my own fault!)
> 
> Canon note: This isn't entirely canon compliant; the series indicates more than once that Dave was hired after the creation of After the End Times. But work with me here.

Here's the thing about Irwins, at least all the ones I know: most of us swear in day-to-day life, but get us in a group and you get an amazing demonstration of the ins and outs of "fuck" being one of the most versatile words in the English language. George claims it's because we have some kind of hive mind that's the opposite of how zombies work, with our intelligence plummeting as more of us congregate, but she doesn't push it. We both know she swears like a sailor when she feels like it, and even better, we both know I have a trump card to play if she snarks about it too much.

That trump card is the story of how she got in shit for swearing in class one time too many when we were about ten years old. She didn't much appreciate the chewing out she got, so she retaliated by demanding an audience with the principal and inviting every teacher who might feel like attending.

George was a unique kid, to put it mildly, and she wasn't the Mason they _expected_ to get into trouble, which as far as I could figure out was because she was one of the smartest students they'd ever had and somehow that had to mean she was on their side. They looked at this mischievous girl with her flawless poker face, who just happened to be able to think circles around most of them, and somehow they didn't see her as mayhem waiting to happen. People are strange.

I guess in their defense, it's not like she caused that much trouble in practice. Teachers love to talk about how kids should exercise their potential to the fullest, and George mostly exercised hers in ways they understood. They had no clue what a bullet they dodged when she chose to follow the good-kid path and save her _real_ potential for times when she deemed it worthwhile to hint at what she was actually capable of.

Anyway, as a result of her invitation, a _lot_ of the school staff were present for a fifteen-minute presentation in which she outlined the etymology and flexibility of the word "fuck" and some other choice terms, bemoaned the lack of genuinely colorful language in common English usage (complete with examples from a few other languages and demonstrations of how many of those tidbits lose their impact in translation because English-speakers tend to hear them as funny rather than creative), and respectfully submitted that restricting our language choices was not only unnecessary but offensive in light of the other countless but more practical restrictions on our lives.

In the process, she swore more than the entire student body combined would in the course of a month, and she delivered the whole speech with no notes and barely a pause to collect her thoughts, followed by handing over an extensive list of citations. Then she stood in front of the principal and said, demure as you please and inscrutable behind her sunglasses, that she was willing to accept punishment if it was still deemed necessary.

She didn't get punished. I don't know if it was because she'd swayed anyone with her argument or because she'd just scared the living fuck out of the staff members who hadn't already been on her side when they walked in, but she headed home with me after school, free and clear. I think they were just about bright enough to appreciate that she hadn't pulled that stunt in front of any other students but me.

You can maybe see why I laugh at her when she makes any kind of comment about how much Irwins swear.

\--From _Hail to the King_ , the blog of Shaun Mason. November 24, 2038.

**********

People make a lot of assumptions about Shaun's and my upbringing. Some of those assumptions are even correct. Our family history is an open book, given what happened to Phillip and the legislation that resulted. Our name is literally a household word, between Mason's Law and the Mason Barrier.

Most importantly, there's a ton of information online about us, starting with our parents posting extensive videos of us the day our adoptions were finalized, but it's not comprehensive. For the most part, our education wasn't recorded, despite Mom's superficially generous offers to take our classes on field trips, as long as everyone filled out forms consenting to having her film them. Shaun's periodic detentions for getting into fights were rarely made public--not so much to keep his behavior quiet as to avoid drawing attention to the fact that his reason for beating people up usually had to do with various classmates' attitudes about me.

One common misconception is that we hate any animal that's more biologically complex than a goldfish, and that assumption keeps coming up even though there's documented evidence to the contrary. Shaun and I _do_ understand the appeal of pets. We had a couple of cats at different times when we were growing up, as well as smaller mammals--hamsters, that sort of thing. I'm fully aware of what it's like to fall asleep listening to a warm, fuzzy animal purring in your ear.

Here's a side note to all the armchair shrinks out there who think Irwins all spent their childhoods torturing small animals--who else would want to spend so much time playing with walking corpses, right? Anyone who thinks my brother the professional zombie-taunter ever did unspeakable things to animals as a precursor to worse things as an adult _clearly_ never saw him with those cats. As teenagers we had one that practically lived on his shoulders, getting put down only when we wanted to be absolutely sure we weren't being spied on. That may seem like excessive paranoia about surveillance, but when you grow up in the public eye the way we did, you come to realize there's no such thing as being too cautious about your privacy--even if that means wondering whether your pet's been bugged.

It's not that big a stretch to go from cats to big dogs to ponies, and on and on. So I see where the people who protest Mason's Law are coming from, and so does Shaun. We respect their opinions. But don't think either of us will hesitate to shoot your overgrown pet between the eyes if it gives us a hungry look.

\--From _Images May Disturb You_ , the blog of Georgia Mason. March 13, 2036.

 

**********

**July 2038**

There are benefits to working under the name of an umbrella organization. Those benefits didn't keep us--mostly George, but me and Buffy to some extent too--from itching to get out from under it, to be our own bosses and run our own show, but in the meantime we had something vaguely resembling co-workers. That was probably never gonna happen again, so taking advantage of it while we could only made sense.

Not that it made a ton of difference to George, since she's not what you'd call social, and it wasn't huge for Buffy, because Fictionals are more prone to chilling with each other despite different site affiliations than Newsies or Irwins are. Fictionals can afford it; they're not in competition for the audience the same way we are, because reading Buffy's poetry wasn't gonna keep anybody from also going off and reading someone else's serialized novel on another site.

Newsies, on the other hand, are competing to provide the best coverage of whatever's going on, and Irwins are in competition for a constantly-replenishing but still limited supply of infected to go play with. And then, once we find our new undead friends, we have to top each other's showmanship. Our viewers are glad to hit multiple sites, but they rank us in a way Fictionals don't have to deal with as directly. We're pitted against each other whether we want to be or not.

That's our job: be the best, be the most daring, be the most suicidal, and have the biggest smile while we do it. The audience wants to see the sun on our faces, because some of them have never been outside long enough to get tanned in their lives. They want to see us laughing. They want to see us exercise our creativity, get to know our trademarks and tricks.

They want to see us bleed.

Maybe you'd think no one would cop to that, but that just means you've never had the dubious pleasure of stumbling across a betting pool devoted to which local Irwins are going to die next. You've never seen all the numbers next to your own name. You've never realized that some of those people have money riding on this, maybe a lot of it, and that some of them--even people who'd call themselves fans, who follow your career--can't _wait_ to watch you die.

George is cynical as hell, and it's contagious. I don't have a lot of illusions--it's hard to, when you have a career that sooner or later will probably end with an autobiographical snuff film. But there's nothing quite like, say, discovering that a woman who's just sent you a heartfelt-sounding marriage proposal is using the exact same username to actively bet against you somewhere else online.

I understand the women who send me sex tapes or propositions and then place their bets; I know how sex and death get all cozy in the deepest parts of our brains. If someone wants to fantasize about fucking me _and_ imagine the rush of seeing me die, power to them. It means I'm doing my job right. Bread and circuses, you know?

But _marriage_ proposals, from those people? They creep me out like almost nothing else. Most women who send me that kind of message don't overlap with the ones in the betting pools, but it happened at least four times--that I noticed--before I stopped even reading those messages and just started forwarding them to George.

She reads them all, because she answers my fan mail, and I know she cross-references because sometimes she comes over and hugs me like I'll vanish the second she lets go. God only knows how many women dream about my death, but my sister is the only one of them who'll grieve.

Given everything, it's not so surprising that Irwins like to get together, sometimes with the cameras rolling and sometimes not, and just spend some time kicking back with people who know what it's like. And if that can mean a bit of awkwardness because you've noticed you're sitting beside someone who's neck-and-neck with you in the "who's going to die next?!" betting pool, well, that's life. Maybe you buy each other drinks. Maybe, if you're not me, you go home together and get it out of your system; I know loads of Irwins whose approach to sex is "as much as possible, preferably right now, so who's up for it?", and those of us who operate differently aren't about to judge.

It's also not surprising that these get-togethers usually include bitch sessions and heated arguments--and occasionally all-out fights, although I don't let myself get dragged into those if I can help it. When people try, I tell them I got that sort of shit out of my system when I was a kid. It's even mostly true. George and I scrapped with each other when we were little, and around the time we outgrew that, we switched to a school where some of the other kids thought George's eyes made her a good target, and I spent the next several years teaching them the hard way that she wasn't.

So you could say I learned everything I know about fighting because of my sister, and that includes arguing. Irwins are as much journalists as Newsies, so most of us are at least decent writers and quick with comebacks. But _I_ grew up with George and our dad, and they set the bar for verbal sparring way above what most people have to deal with. That doesn't mean I always win arguments, but I win enough to piss some people off. 

This particular night, I was out with a group of sixteen local Irwins, and we'd been hanging out in what was technically a Level 5 hazard zone since early evening. We'd built a roaring fire to keep the chill at bay, and took turns keeping an eye on our perimeter, and mostly it was a good time. The only thing keeping me from completely enjoying it was that Rob--a guy I've known since we were teenagers and have never had much of an opinion on one way or another--was in a shitty mood and trying to take it out on me.

He kept trying to pick a fight. I kept shutting him down. He kept not taking the hint, and getting madder and madder. I could almost see steam rising off him.

Midway through the fourth or fifth round of that crap, he spat out, "Mason, you motherfucking--"

"Hey, hey," I interrupted, not taking my eyes off the fire. It was burning higher than was probably safe. It was beautiful. And it was a hell of a lot more interesting than Rob. "We all know you want to do my mom, but leave me out of your fantasy life."

"You're an asshole," he said, coughing a little as the wind shifted and directed the smoke at him.

"Because I didn't try to get naughty pics of Mom for you in senior year, or because I haven't forgotten you asked?" Rob was the only other Irwin--or reasonably successful blogger, for that matter--who'd come out of our high school within five years of me and George. I'm pretty sure Mom's indirectly to blame for him getting into the industry. I've seen some of his footage, unfortunately, and I wouldn't be surprised if that eventually makes her even-more-indirectly to blame for him dying young.

I gave him my friendliest smile. "No shame in it, man. You're not the only one who tried."

"You're still an asshole."

"Not denying it."

The others were getting as tired of Rob as I was. From the other side of the fire, Miguel, who has two years on us and seems to think that counts for a lot, cleared his throat. "Chill, Rob. I'm just gonna throw this out there: no disrespect to Stacy Mason, God knows, but if we're talking about the ladies in that family, I vote for his sister." I shot him a warning look, and he raised his hands. "Only in the most respectful terms possible."

Oh, this was going to be a fun night. "Are you seriously going there?" I asked, trying to keep my tone light.

"Just wondering if there's any change on that front. Can't blame a guy for living in hope as long as she's not hooked up with someone."

I didn't try to hide my wince. Miguel was heading onto ground we'd been over before. I'd had enough similar conversations over the last few years to be pretty confident that the gross feeling it put in my stomach was disgust at his reasons for asking, not some misdirected jealousy; I don't care if someone's attracted to George any more than she cares when people come on to me.

Honestly, it's nice when people appreciate her, so it doesn't bug me at all when I get asked for tips on approaching George because someone's interested in _her_. But they're different from the guys--it's always guys--who only know that they've never heard of anyone sleeping with her and think getting their hands on Georgia Mason, untouchable (hey, no one's fucked her, right?) ice queen, would prove something. Guys like Miguel don't give a rat's ass about what she's really like. They don't even care about her looks--hell, I'm not sure half of them would _recognize_ her if she had her sunglasses off and a pair of normal-colored contacts in. What they want to get cozy with is her reputation.

It's really good that George cultivated that reputation on purpose and has a sense of humor about it. Otherwise I probably would've murdered someone by now, and that kind of thing isn't good for professional relations, especially since _I'm_ the one who's supposed to be facilitating goodwill with the other beta bloggers in the Bay Area.

"C'mon, guys." I sat back, still hoping to fend them off. "You know the rules. No discussing my sister's love life, lack of love life, or details in either case."

"Cameras aren't running, Mason," Miguel said, grinning. "You can tell us. Everything's off the record, as long as no dead folks join the party."

"Not my rules, dude." I took a swig of cider; no one drinks alcohol in a hazard zone without a bigger death wish than your average Irwin. "I can neither confirm nor deny. Anyway, how much attention do you pay to whether _your_ sister gets laid?"

Perched beside him, Val snorted. " _His_ sister's not Georgia Mason."

"Good point." My shoulders cracked when I rolled them. "And _those_ are the key words: Georgia. Mason. You really expect me to blab about her just because she's not around?" Miguel scowled at me. I considered my options and decided George wouldn't care if I pissed him off.

"Way I see it, there's three things going on here." I ticked them off on my fingers. "One: if you only back your partners when they're in earshot, at least one of you sucks at your job. Two: if my sister doesn't want me to talk about her personal life, I won't, because who she does or does not fuck is her business. And three: if _Georgia Mason_ doesn't want me talking about her, I won't, because I know better than any of you that messing with her never ends well. In fact, it ends very, very badly." I took another drink. "You guys don't know the meaning of pain."

"Fucking twins," said a guy I barely knew, tone a lot more good-natured than the words. "Always sticking together."

I didn't bother correcting him. He had the important part right.

"Speaking of George, I vote for a check-in break." I watched the rest of the group unobtrusively as I got up, looking to see who followed my example and who rolled their eyes. It was a pretty even split, and in the space of a minute, it told me more than hours of discussion about which news teams were _teams_ and which were simply bloggers with complementary skill sets killing time together until something better came along. There's nothing wrong with the latter, but it's still good info to have.

I stepped away from the fire and tapped George's code into my ear cuff, pitching my voice into the low range that said I was being polite about noise levels, not trying to hold an intriguing discussion under other journalists' noses. "Guess what?" I said when she picked up. "We're twins again."

"When are we not?"

"And Miguel thinks I'm a big meanie for not giving him hints on how to get into your pants."

Only George could make a burst of laughter sound so disgusted. "One of these days I'm going to write an exposé on how much time the Bridge Supporters Irwins spend discussing how to hook up with each other's Newsies."

"You should. You could do a sociological comparison with the Irwins who try to bang Fictionals." I shivered. "Hey, it's chilly out here."

"Shocking," she said dryly. "And you without a sweater?"

I ignored the sarcasm. "How're things on your end?"

"Decent. I'm polishing up that interview I want to post in the morning, and doing some background reading for the conference next weekend. I'm keeping an eye on the instant-headline feeds, but nothing interesting seems to be going on." She hummed thoughtfully while she checked something. "You know things are dead when it's this late and all the non-entertainment news cycles are still making noise about the cattle regulation debates."

Rhetorically, I said, "Is it me, or is it completely stupid that there's more debate about how to raise zombie chow than there is about raising the meat _we_ eat?"

"Don't drag logic into politics, Shaun. Go get back to your fun, and I'll get back to mine."

"Okay," I said, and went back to the warmth of the fire.

**********

Things were less rowdy after that, mainly because Rob took off, pleading deadlines. The more laid-back atmosphere meant I enjoyed the rest of the night more, and our little gathering broke up just past midnight. I was heading back to the van to call George and let her know I was on my way home when I heard my name.

"Hey, Shaun!" I turned to see the guy who'd made the "twins" comment jogging after me. By the time he caught up I'd managed to remember his name. Part of his name. Dave Something.

"What's up?" I asked amiably.

He fell into step beside me. "We haven't really met. I'm Dave Novakowski. Uh, sorry if I was out of line earlier."

"About what?"

"You and your sister. I respect what you guys do, and I don't want to give you the opposite impression."

"Not offended. Also not sure why you care if I am."

"Because I'd rather be in your good books." He caught my eye and gave me a winning smile. "Look, I'll be blunt. I've only been in the area for a couple months, so I've been checking out all the locals. I like your team's work."

"Thanks." Blunt worked for me. "Why does that sound like you're angling for a job?"

"'cause I am. We're all betas in the same pool right _now_ , but I'd lay good money you guys are going someplace sooner or later. I dunno for sure about you or Buffy, but there's no way in hell your sister isn't aiming higher."

We'd reached the van, which presented me with an immediate choice. I sized Dave up and shrugged. "Hop in. I can drop you someplace if you need a lift, or we can sit and talk if you've got a vehicle here."

"Great." He leaned back against the van, hand on his gun. I dug out a pair of blood tests and tossed one to him. If I were alone I would've just gotten in--the van's security settings weren't maxed out, so it wouldn't require one to let me in--but George would have a fit if I let someone in without testing him.

After we both tested clean, as expected, I climbed in and unlocked the passenger door to let Dave in. "You're sure about a lift?" he asked as he opened the door.

"What's your backup plan?"

"Catching a ride with Val."

"You can tell her you're covered." I waited while he made the call, and dialed George as soon as he hung up. "Hey," I said when she answered. "I'm gonna be a bit later--got waylaid by a guy who wants a job."

"With us?" Trust my sister to be entirely unfazed by a one A.M. call about someone wanting a job we weren't in a position to offer.

"Yep. You up for chatting?" I watched Dave out of the corner of my eye. He didn't exactly look alarmed, but he was suddenly sitting up a lot straighter in the passenger seat.

George made an agreeable noise, sounding way too alert. Since we hadn't known when I'd be making it home, she was probably so hyped up on caffeine that she wouldn't be sleeping for another couple of hours anyway. "Hang on." I tugged my ear cuff off and slotted it into the speakers. "There. George, I'm sitting here with one Dave Novakowski. Dave, the disembodied voice is Georgia Mason."

"Hi, Dave." The faint sound of typing came through in the background. I closed my eyes to listen. The noise wasn't unbroken, which meant she was multitasking--bursts of words on whatever article she was writing, punctuated by brief silences while she cycled through screens and researched things. Dave had presumably just become one of those things.

"Pleased to meet you," Dave said.

"We haven't met," she corrected him, managing not to sound distracted despite the sudden rapid-fire noise of her cranking out another paragraph. "I'm looking into whether I want to change that." Dave blinked. "Shaun, were we talking about him earlier?"

"Yeah." I took a quick look at the monitors, making sure no zombies had materialized in an area that had just been swarming with Irwins. Weirder things have happened, and the fog was getting thicker. With all clear, I reclined my seat a little. "He's the one with opinions on twins, not one of the guys looking to screw you."

A strangled sound came from the other seat. There was a trace of laughter in George's reply, maybe too faint for Dave to pick up on. "Obviously, if we're having this conversation."

He shot me a look. "What, you screen her calls?"

"Her reputation screens her calls. Most folks don't have the balls to just email her."

"How I manage to be both a man-eater and a frigid bitch who's never been laid, I'll never know." She sounded relaxed, which meant she liked what she was finding. "This is some solid work, Dave."

"Can I ask what you're looking at, uh--"

"Georgia's fine." She eased his stumble as if she hadn't noticed. "So far, footage from Santa Cruz last month and your trip over to Dover-Foxcroft last year, your bias registrations, and a few random blog posts from the past year. Your 'newcomer's first Santa Cruz venture' is nicely done, by the way. People always like fresh eyes. And the thing where you want to get up to Alaska means our Fictional would like you on principle. Shaun, you'll appreciate some of this."

"Only some of it?" Dave asked, already trying to roll with her. Good man.

A lot of Irwins, in particular, never quite wrap their heads around how fast George processes text. Most of us are visual thinkers; we have to assess everything we're seeing ASAP if we don't want to wind up dead. George is just as quick with the thousand words every image we see is worth. Add in that she can basically read at full speed while simultaneously keeping an eye on a video feed or two--enough that she gets the gist and notices when something needs her full attention--and you start to get an idea of why she's so damn good at her job. She can't _quite_ dictate blog posts while doing all of that, which is probably just as well. When she figures it out, she'll be ready to run the world.

This time her amusement was more evident. "You don't want me to bias Shaun too much before he reviews your work himself, do you?"

Dave relaxed a little. "Depends on whether you're biasing him in favor, I guess."

"Hmm. Fair enough." There was another flurry of typing. "Shaun, check your messages. I need to get back to work."

My handheld beeped. I glanced down at the text scrolling across the screen: _"Check these links and decide whether to introduce us or cut him loose."_

 _"Okay,"_ I replied, clicking the link for the first video she'd selected.

Dave blinked as I started watching, but he didn't protest. It was a risk, checking his stuff out with him right there; if it sucked, I wasn't going to be delicate about saying so. But if it sucked, George wouldn't have been passing it on to me while I was still with him, and I wanted to be able to talk to him about anything that stood out.

I watched the first video without comment, nodded, and started the second one, from his "Dover-Foxcroft" venture. "So tell me about this, dude," I said. "Where the hell _is_ this?" The landscape and architecture I was seeing looked familiar, but in that "it's been in movies a lot" kind of way.

"Maine," he said, an even-more-familiar excitement animating his face. "I've been doing a series contrasting abandoned towns on the east and west coasts."

That sheer enthusiasm was a big part of what I'd been looking for. So far my impression of the guy was of someone more restrained than your average Irwin, but as soon as I started asking questions, he got right into it. Even better, about two sentences into his explanation, he'd already proved that his enthusiasm was contagious. He pulled me right into his narrative so smoothly that I laughed out loud; he glanced at me, filed my reaction under "positive", and kept going.

**********

Dave and I wound up talking for nearly two hours before I drove him home, and we spent the drive comparing schedules and agreeing to meet up for a late lunch the next day. He didn't know any of the best local places yet, so I picked the spot and texted him the GPS coordinates after pulling up in front of his place.

"Will Georgia be there?" he asked, just before opening the door.

"Yeah," I said, without offering the caveat of _"unless a big story breaks"_. If Dave wasn't enough of a journalist to take that as a given, we didn't want him.

The two of us checked the van's exterior for trouble and exchanged nods when we found none, and Dave hopped out. I kept the van idling while he headed to his building's front door, watching how he checked out his surroundings, and I didn't drive off until he'd tested clean and vanished inside. Common courtesy.

It was past three A.M. by the time I got home. I grabbed a sterilization bin for my clothes and moved through the house as quietly as I could, hoping not to wake Mom and Dad. Upstairs, I found George's bedroom door open and her sitting in the doorway, leaning back against the frame. The hallway was dark; I might've tripped over her if black light hadn't been spilling out around her. She was barefoot but bundled into an open sweater over the tank top and UC Berkeley sweatpants she usually wears to bed.

I gave her an appreciative look. Ninety-five percent of George's wardrobe breaks down into "professional and boring", "casual and utilitarian", or "just plain comfortable, which naturally means she never leaves the house wearing it". There's a good reason why I take pretty much any excuse to talk her into wearing her few dressier outfits: much as it annoys her, we get a ratings boost if she goes out in a dress, and the audience and I both benefit from the fact that she looks damn good in one. But failing that, her at-home-only clothes are my favorite look. Call me crazy, but I like seeing her look _comfortable_.

She reached for my hand as I reached for hers, and I tugged her to her feet. "Hey," she murmured as we shut her door behind us. "I heard the van."

"Honey, I'm home," I teased, earning a sleepy, amused smile. "Borrow your lights?"

"Sure." She let go of my hand and dropped onto her bed, sitting cross-legged against the wall. I tore a sheet of plastic free, laid it out, and began undressing. We both knew I was clean; I hadn't been near any recognizable infection vectors and had passed my blood tests between the get-together and her room, and I never would've touched her if that weren't true. Still, I'd technically been in an unsecured area for the past several hours, so I inspected each piece of clothing as I pulled it off, and every inch of skin underneath, for the telltale fluorescence of blood.

While I was checking my clothes, George was checking me out. People talk about feeling someone's eyes on them, and I don't know how true it usually is, but it's one hundred percent accurate between us. I could tell she was watching me with appreciation that might've evolved into being turned on if she'd been less tired, but in her current state it was more of a quiet satisfaction--not so much wanting me as being pleased about already having me. It's a good feeling, having someone look at you like that.

I'm not stupid enough to be jealous of her eyes, but sometimes I wish I could watch her as freely as she can watch me. I love so many little things about the way she moves: how her gestures are economical but expressive, and how she can stride into a crowd of men who're all a head taller than her and have most of them melt out of her way, because she's just that focused.

Gazing back at her wasn't going to get either of us to sleep any faster. "I'd better hit the shower," I said, bundling the plastic around my clothes and dumping it all in the bin.

"I'm not waiting up."

"Smart move." I knelt by the bed as George scooted to the edge and wrapped me in a full-body hug, arms around my shoulders and knees pressing into my sides.

She inhaled deeply. "You smell good. Did you guys have a fire going the whole time?"

"Uh-huh." The couple of hours I'd spent talking to Dave and then getting home hadn't been long enough for the scent of woodsmoke to fade. Most of the time when we smell smoke, it's bodies being burned. Campfire scents are heaven in comparison.

"And you had fun?"

"Mostly." I rested my head on her shoulder and slid my hands up the back of her top. They were cool enough to make her shiver, but she didn't protest. "Could've done without the latest round of people thinking I'll cave and give them some dirt on you, but whatever."

"If Novakowski isn't too good to be true, that should make up for it."

She had a point. "True. But yeah, it was fun." I straightened up and kissed her, tasting the lingering sweet acidity of the soda she'd been drinking to stay awake. Coke straight from the can is vile shit--you couldn't pay me enough to drink it myself--but the hints of it in George's mouth are just part of her flavor, same as the prickly bite of her hair dye is part of her smell. "Is it okay if I leave the door open tonight?"

"Yes." The way she kissed me back told me she was already drifting off. George's kisses are a whole language of their own, and this one clearly said, _"I love you, but goodbye"_ as her brain checked out for the night. "Get going," she said, pushing me away when she was done. " _Somebody_ booked us into a meeting tomorrow."

In the time it took me to stand, she'd taken her sweater and sunglasses off and flopped down on the bed, burying her face in her pillow. "Sorry I was out so late," I said, bending to run my fingers through her hair.

"It's fine," she mumbled. "Go away. Good night."

"Night." I left her to sleep, switching off the last of her lights as I went to wash up.

Despite my good intentions, I wasn't quite wound down yet by the time I'd finished showering, and I didn't want to turn any lights on, so I slipped back into George's room. She was out cold, lying on her stomach and as much wrapped around the pillow as resting her head on it. She stirred at my footsteps.

"Just me," I said, and she settled with a sigh.

If I lay down with her I probably wouldn't be able to convince myself to leave, so I knelt beside the bed again and put a hand on her back. It wasn't enough contact to make her feel crowded in her sleep, and touching her like that helped me feel less wired.

"That feels nice," she said into her pillow, not waking up.

If she'd seen how I smiled in response, she would've teased me for it. George doesn't talk in her sleep much, so her doing it now was a giveaway that she was feeling entirely safe. "Good."

I spent a few minutes idly stroking her spine through the blanket, until my thoughts had quieted enough that I'd be able to get to sleep myself. I got up and kissed her bare shoulder before heading to my own bed for what little was left of the night.

**********

As planned, we met Dave for lunch the next day, late enough that the three of us had the restaurant to ourselves. George sat across from me, with Dave between us. Her back was to the door, but with me looking over her shoulder at anything that could possibly approach, that didn't bother her. Thinking fast is her job; shooting dead things in the face before anyone has time to say the word "zombie" is mine.

The timing also meant we were all good and hungry, so we put substantial dents in our meals before getting past small talk. George didn't say much, opting to listen intently while Dave and I chatted. Her near-silence didn't seem to stress him, which was a good sign.

She went from "ravenous" to "still picking away at her food" well before we did. Dave paused mid-sentence to watch when she folded herself up on her chair, hugging her knees to her chest. She raised an eyebrow, amused by how obviously he was revising his impression of her from someone who was always stiff and distant--that was her reputation in action again--to accommodate the way she was sitting.

The lone waitress on duty was Gwen, whose name tag identified her as "Shirley". I get the reasoning behind waitstaff using pseudonyms--nobody wants to be stalked--but every time I saw her, I hoped no one ever had to try to identify her body while she was dressed for work.

She swung by our table and topped up my and Dave's coffees. "Another soda, honey?" she asked George.

"I'm good, thanks." George's smile was brief but sincere. Gwen is Southern, middle-aged, and prone to slipping us pieces of pie. It's hard not to love a woman who leaves pastry in her wake.

The staff at that particular hole-in-the-wall diner all know us; we've been eating there longer than most of them have had their jobs. They're all used to us having our boots on the seats, one way or another. The owner remembers us as twelve-year-olds stopping in to do homework on our way home from school. Just as well she's not too proprietary about us, since we were fickle kids who divided our business between four or five "favorite" places--just enough that our parents couldn't claim we were dodging them, while still not being _too_ easy to track down.

It didn't hurt that one of the ways we follow our parents' example is by pointedly going to businesses we like as soon as possible after nearby outbreaks. Pretty much the only time we blog about where we're eating or shopping is when we want to help prove to the world that it's safe again. Call it our contribution to community spirit.

It also didn't hurt that we'd _been_ there once when there was a small outbreak half a block away, back when we were sixteen. A woman with a bleeding bite had tried to get inside, freaking out but not amplifying yet. George and I had kept her out, pulling our guns and waving her away. She backed up enough that we could safely open the door and go outside to talk to her. That still put us close enough to see that she was hyperventilating as well as crying.

While I covered them, George took a small, wholly symbolic step closer. "I'm sorry," she said, nodding at the bite, which was doing little more than oozing by that point. Amplification was starting to set in. "What's your name?"

The woman stared blankly for long enough to make me wonder if she was closer to conversion than we'd thought, and then she said, "Flora."

"Hi, Flora." George gestured at our cameras. "Do you want to record a message for anyone?"

That broke through the woman's panic, exactly like George meant it to. Some people respond well to matter-of-factness in the face of death, and George had just offered her something concrete to focus on.

She settled down, and George and I spent the last few minutes of her life with her. George was the one who filmed Flora's short message to her family, and the one who kept her talking until she began to lose coherence.

I was the one who said, "I'm a good shot," and then waited until Flora nodded. When she closed her eyes for the last time, I put my money where my mouth was.

For better or worse, we're our parents' kids. We'd made sure our cameras were rolling as soon as we drew the guns, so we caught every second of it, and we couldn't have planned a better post if we'd scripted it--which is why it worked so well.

Our footage went viral. It was a big factor in how we wound up having a bit of an established reputation of our own, not just on account of the Mason name, before we even finished high school. "Everyone knew" that George was level-headed and able to get through to people, and that I would be calm and humane about putting a bullet through someone's brain. If we'd been twenty or so, none of that would've been notable, but people's expectations of teenagers are so low that it was worthy of comment--a lot of comment. Years later, people still remembered.

That included the staff of the diner where we were holding our meeting with Dave, five years later. For our next couple of visits they'd acted like we'd fended off a horde of encroaching zombies, rather than performing a mercy killing. That wore off, thank God, but no one there was ever going to side-eye George for having her feet on her chair. It was also possibly the only place in the world where someone could call her "honey"--with a straight face, unlike my joking--and not get a death glare strong enough to be felt right through her sunglasses.

That didn't mean I couldn't tease her about it. When Gwen turned away again, I mouthed "Honey", smirking. George leaned over, cuffed me in the arm, and swiped one of my fries.

Sitting all tucked up like that, she probably looked plausibly casual. She'd dressed to disarm Dave: combat boots, jeans, and a plain black top layered under an unbuttoned, long-sleeved green shirt she stole from me when I outgrew it at fifteen or so. It made her look _young_ , which was unusual. Between her sunglasses and her generally serious expression, people usually read her as older than we are, not younger. In those clothes, she looked closer to seventeen than twenty-one.

She was putting on a good enough show of being relaxed that even I might've bought it, if I didn't know she's constitutionally incapable of relaxing away from home or, occasionally, in our van. She was only pulling it off because of how much she'd liked both the quality of Dave's writing and the vibe she got from it. _"Either he's a genuinely decent human being, or he's a good enough faker that he wouldn't be wasting his time trying to cozy up to us when there're bigger fish out there,"_ had been her verdict.

I'd liked his writing too, but it was his videos that really caught my attention, especially after talking them over with him. He was almost freakishly cautious for someone in our line of work, but his work had flair without crossing the line into flamboyant. He knew how to sustain viewers' excitement, which is something a lot of people never master, and he was obviously intelligent. He'd never get away with playing the "Irwins can't think, so don't mind me" card that I use fairly often, but then, I have an unfair advantage--George is smart enough to make anyone look like they haven't got two brain cells to rub together. I play to my strengths, and one of those strengths happens to be making people underestimate me.

"You should know my brother's trouble," she said during the next lull in our conversation.

Dave chuckled. "Trouble? An _Irwin_? Never."

"Like you can't even imagine." The fondness in George's voice made me glad I hadn't just taken a mouthful of coffee. It wasn't a tone I heard very often outside of our rooms. "But he's got an eye for talent, and he thinks you have it."

"Good to hear." He shot a look at me. When I didn't say anything, he turned back to her, tacitly accepting that I'd handed off the conversation. "What do you think?"

"I'm here, aren't I?" She gave him a small smile without making him work for it. "If you ask, Shaun will happily describe how hard I make his life by refusing to leave the house without a good reason."

I sat back while they talked a while longer, until Dave went in search of the bathroom. As soon as he was out of sight, I gave George a sidelong look. "Who the hell are you, and what have you done with my sister?"

"What?" she asked, utterly failing to look innocent.

"I'd tell Dave he's charming you, but after last night he might decide I'm trying to set you up with him."

"And here I thought dressing like I raided my boyfriend's closet was supposed to signal 'do not flirt'."

"I think that only works if you have a boyfriend to go with the clothes."

George didn't bite. "Since I'm lacking that in my life, I suppose you'll have to do." She cocked her head and stole a handful of fries from my plate. "'Charming me', huh?"

"What do _you_ call it?"

"Shaun Mason, are you jealous?"

I leaned over and knuckled her shoulder. "Don't make me dignify that with an answer."

With perfect aplomb, she said, "I am _trying_ not to scare him off."

"Not really how I imagined your interviewing style."

"I'm not interviewing him. You already did. You like him, and everything I saw says you're right to like him." She shrugged. "This isn't exactly a job-fair situation. This is a case of what looks like an excellent Irwin throwing himself into our laps. We'd be stupid to let him get away just because we don't technically have a place for him." She ate one of her pilfered fries and frowned at the rest. "I should've ordered these."

"You always say that. How do you suck so much at food?"

"I do not suck at food," she informed me, as Dave came back and reclaimed his seat. "I have more important things on my mind."

"This place gives her salt cravings," I explained. "Don't even ask. And she always forgets and orders salad."

George rotated my plate so the ketchup was in reach. "I _like_ salad."

"You mean you like the salad from the Greek place near campus."

"Go fuck yourself," she said mildly.

"Don't be nasty, George. If you're nasty I'll take my fries away and then you'll kill me in my sleep and no one'll be happy. Especially Dave, 'cause he'll have done this networking for nothing." I scoped out her plate: she'd only eaten one of her two chicken enchiladas and very little of the salad. Without further ado I snagged the plate and swapped it for mine, which was still half covered in fries. "There. I need some protein anyway."

"I could get used to you being sweet to me instead of making my life miserable."

"Somebody's gotta keep you on your toes." I bit into the neglected enchilada.

Dave observed our mock-squabble with wary amusement. "Do you finish each other's sentences, too?"

George's focus snapped back to him. "'Too'?"

"Do you do the full spectrum of twin stuff? Other than pretending to be each other and trading clothes, I mean. I don't think you'd pull that off."

I couldn't help laughing. "Technically, she's wearing one of my shirts."

" _Technically_ , it's mine now." She made a "hush" gesture at me, her air of relaxation evaporating. "Pop quiz, Novakowski: using research or deduction, how fast can you tell me what's wrong with your line of questioning?"

"Uh--" Dave narrowed his eyes, glancing back and forth between us. "Well, me saying something like that last night didn't bug Shaun, and _you_ don't look pissed. And if it's something I can research it's factual, so..." He blinked. "Oh."

"'Oh' is not an answer."

"You're not twins. Everyone just thinks you are." George waited, expressionless. So much for not scaring the guy. "And your online profiles just give your birth year, not actual dates." She gave him a tiny nod. Dave studied us again, stress melting away as he put it together. "Shit. You're not even bio-sibs, are you?"

"Gold star to the Irwin," she said. "People usually remember we're adopted, given all the fuss our parents make about it, but they assume we came as a set."

I filched back a couple of fries from my surrendered plate. "And we have better things to do than go around correcting them."

"Fair enough." Dave apparently wasn't done examining us. If I had to bet, I would've said he was trying to pick apart all the ways George and I _don't_ look alike.

The answer is that we don't look much alike at all, but most people, being observant as bricks, fail to notice that. To be fair, George dyes her hair religiously and I do mine when I get around to it, so our hair naturally being different shades of brown isn't obvious. At a glance our skin looks similar, but only if you don't take into account that I spend a ton of time outside and she's practically a hermit, so the "similar" skin color is me with a perpetual light tan and her as pale as she gets.

That's the full extent of how anyone could conceivably think we look alike, since our faces and builds are completely different, so I can offer people all the benefit of the doubt while still concluding that they're idiots who see what they want to see. At least there's some amusement value in watching people scramble to find similarities they can comment on.

Dave cleared his throat. "Speaking of your parents, will you consider it sucking up if I say I like their work?"

"Nope," I said. "We couldn't care less what anyone thinks of their work. It's got nothing to do with us."

"Gotcha."

"But if you ever meet them, they'd love to hear all about it," George said. "Flattering their egos never hurts."

He chuckled. "Duly noted. I'm not a big enough fan to hit you up for an introduction." He gave me a sidelong look. "Or nude pics of your mom. Did Rob really do that?"

I grimaced. "Yeah, him and at least a dozen other guys. Because that's _exactly_ how I want to think about my mother."

"Benefits of being adopted," George noted. "Shaun and I can pretend our parents have never had sex--at least not since _long_ before we were born."

She didn't hesitate over the caveat, but Dave gave her a somber nod. He'd apparently done enough research on us--or simply knew enough through cultural osmosis--to catch what she wasn't spelling out. Obviously Mom and Dad had had sex, since they had Phillip before us. Phillip, whose death had brought us together; if he'd lived, they wouldn't have had the hole in their lives that they'd tried and failed to fill with us.

The next time he glanced away, George and I exchanged a quick look that passed for a nod. Dave was smart, had an A-18 license, and shot good footage. A field run was in order.

**********

George and I go after more news stories together than a lot of partnered Newsies and Irwins. We know how to use our respective strengths to bolster each other's work, and that doesn't come naturally to some people--plus plenty of Newsies are too chickenshit to get down and dirty and take a little risk. But George has more of a sense of adventure than most people would ever imagine. It was probably inevitable, being raised by our mom and having me for a best friend.

If Dave was surprised that she came with us when I expressed interest in seeing him work in the field, he hid it well. A few days later the three of us took 101 up to Arcata, a small city that met the criteria for the series Dave was doing: it had been overrun in the Rising and left to rot, with most of its surviving population relocating south to Eureka, if not further. Arcata wasn't a known gathering spot for zombies, but it also never got cleaned out officially, although the officials in Eureka made damn sure they had a clean border. Arcata was simply small enough and far enough off the beaten path that almost nobody went there except _really_ stupid college kids (or at least that's how George described them; they were usually our age). Enough of them lucked out and came home alive that it was still considered an acceptable place to send friends on stupid, drunken dares.

Officially, I wasn't there doing a story at all. I was basically chilling with Dave while he poked around, while George was prepping to do an interview with him--her own spin on "a newcomer's perspective", covering things more like "what did he know before he got here?" and "what tempted him out this way?" It was a puff piece, and we all knew it, but she was sick of weighing in on shit like cattle regulations and glad to have a change of pace.

We'd been there for a few hours with no signs of trouble, which meant Dave had safely acquired a ton of footage that would've looked like he risked his neck to get it if there'd been a hint of zombie activity in the area. Once he had enough to do his story and George had enough footage and interview audio for hers, we all looked at each other, waiting to see who'd state the obvious.

George went for it first, confirming my suspicion that she'd been bored out of her skull recently. "Do you guys think it's _too_ quiet around here?"

"From the way people talk about this place, I would've expected at least a couple of rotted shamblers," said Dave.

"Me too, and that reeks of off-the-books cleanup," I said. "It's only mid-afternoon. Let's poke around some more."

It took a few minutes to inspect all of our cameras and weapons. George and I checked Dave's out as well as our own, just to see what he routinely carried, and we headed out on foot to see if there was anything interesting in the vicinity. We fell into an obvious formation: Dave went first, since he was technically the lead on our venture, and I covered our backs, putting George between us for maximum safety. She's a solid shot for a Newsie--good enough that I trust her to cover me in most situations--but any Irwin with gun skills at her level probably wouldn't survive long. By definition, Dave and I were both a lot better.

We didn't find anything nearby, so we backtracked to the van and drove a mile or two into town to repeat the process. Again, nothing.

The third neighborhood was the charm. At pretty much the exact same moment, all three of us noticed a driveway that sloped a bit down a hill, putting whatever was at the end out of sight. The asphalt was shot all to hell, but there was hardly any debris on it. Whatever was down there, somebody was using it.

What we found was a small house in rough shape. It didn't look inhabited, exactly, but there were recent tire tracks in the front yard, with no vehicle currently in sight. More interestingly, it was surrounded by an electric fence that was either brand-spanking new or fairly new and scrupulously maintained.

We all studied the fence. "Could be anti-zombie protection," I said, playing devil's advocate. George stayed quiet, letting us do our thing. I knew she was itching to speak up, but technically this was Dave's expedition. Professional courtesy said she should let him decide whether to bring her in.

Dave shook his head. "Doubt it. No one officially lives here, right? This whole thing screams 'shady operation'." He looked back at us and said, "What's your gut saying, Georgia?"

She pursed her lips, giving the situation another once-over. "If we find anything interesting, you know I'll be doing my own coverage?"

Dave said, "No conflict of interest. You're a Newsie."

Just to get it on the record, I said, "I'll do support work. If I get any especially awesome footage, you two can haggle over it."

George waited until Dave nodded, satisfied, and then said, "I'm thinking it's something small scale and non-technological--there's no visible power source big enough to be supporting a massive amount of tech. Could just be a small grow-op--something along those lines." Her brow furrowed. "Something literally smells weird, though. What _is_ that? It's not pot."

Dave walked right up to the fence and took a deep breath. "Dogs," he said.

I didn't even think. I narrowed the gap between me and George to a matter of inches, resting my hand on my gun. Our family's thing about large animal regulation in general is abstract to us, but big dogs are another story--and it had to be big dogs out here, if there was something happening under the radar.

A giant fucking dog going through amplification caused the death of the brother we never met. We know our parents' feelings about them aren't totally rational, but we've been steeped in their wariness and dislike our whole lives. The idea of George anywhere near some unknown number of dogs made me twitchy.

She didn't show any outward sign of acknowledging my knee-jerk reaction. She just frowned and said, "Okay. How about you guys go poke that potential hornets' nest, and I'll go keep a lookout and start doing my own poking around online?"

I gave her shoulder a grateful squeeze and glanced at Dave, who nodded agreement. "I'll get George up to the van and be right back."

"Sure thing." Dave eyed the fence. "Bring some jumper cables back with you?"

We nodded and headed back to the road. George laid out her rough plans as we went: while Dave and I were doing our thing, she'd keep an eye out for anyone else, living or dead, and see what she could dig up on the property and its owner, if it had one. I stayed with her while we quickly set up some motion-activated cameras in the trees and on a long-defunct streetlight; they'd be easy enough to retrieve if we didn't want to keep tabs on the place. Once that was done and she was securely locked in the van, I hustled to rejoin Dave, cables in hand.

When I got back, I found him focused intently on picking the lock on the fence door. "Either I'll have this open in a minute or we'll be setting off alarms and have to bolt," he said without looking up. "Can you bypass the gate?"

"Yep." Working around him, I clipped the jumper cables to the fence at either side of the door. If--when--Dave got it unlocked and we opened it, we'd be able to walk right in without disrupting the fence's current.

"Got it!" Dave announced, bouncing a little in glee. We traded grins, made one last check of our cameras, and headed in.

The yard was small, with nowhere for us to duck out of sight if anyone came back. On the other hand, that meant no zombies could sneak up on us. I tapped my ear cuff and opened a line to the van. "How're the feeds, George?"

"Audio and video are both coming in clear."

"Cool. We're heading to the house now."

Dave and I were at a side window almost before I finished saying so. It was too high for us to get a good look inside, but we got around that easily enough by putting cameras on rotating-head tripods and seeing what they were picking up on our handhelds. It didn't give us a great angle, but it was enough to confirm Dave's initial suspicion: dogs. I counted at least three adults, two of which looked to be mothers with puppies. It was hard to be sure. Not only was it dark in there, but the dogs were all pitch black.

"Black Labs," Dave muttered to me, adjusting his camera settings for the lighting; I was doing the same. "We'd get better footage if they were Goldens."

"Just as glad they're not," I said. Dave shot me a puzzled glance. I hesitated and muted my ear cuff. "At lunch the other day, I got the impression you know what happened to our brother."

"Yeah, sure. Most people know," he began, and then his attention to detail caught up with his mouth. "That was a Golden Retriever."

"Yep."

He muted his mic pickups. "Shit. You okay?"

"Yeah. Just glad George is back at the van."

His brow furrowed. "Would she be upset?"

"We'd both be fine, but I'd be paying too much attention to her instead of the job, and she'd probably do the same about me." I shrugged. "That all happened before we were born. We're not scared of them or traumatized or anything, but we're both conditioned to be extra cautious. On a gut level, I'd rather deal with a fucking lion or something." I reopened the line to George before Dave could answer.

"Everything all right?" she asked immediately.

"We're fine. Nobody's home but a whole whack of really illegal dogs."

Dave and I circled around the house, where we found a back window, as expected. What we saw when we crept closer and peered inside was _not_ expected: the inside of the one-storey house had been basically gutted, leaving it one open room.

One of the dogs spotted us and started barking, and the others joined in within seconds. I barely noticed. I could see through the house to the front door. More importantly, I could see the thick wall of what was probably bulletproof glass between the barking dogs and that door--and the thing chained up near it. "Holy _shit_ ," I said.

Dave followed my eyes and blanched. "Guess we're seeing the same thing."

"I'd say so. George, you've got eyes on the road?"

"All clear," she reported.

"Let's get some light on it, Novakowski."

He nodded, and we both switched our camera lights on. The dogs' barking got louder; we ignored it. What the increased brightness showed was an airlock in the glass, far away from what we could now tell for sure was a fully amplified dog positioned to bite anyone who came through the door. "George, are you seeing this?" I murmured.

"Yes. Get your footage and get the fuck out."

"Give us a few more minutes." I squinted through the window, still taking in details. There had to be some amazing soundproofing installed along with the airlock--I couldn't hear even the faintest sound coming from the zombie, and the dogs didn't seem to be paying attention to it. I couldn't imagine how many illegal dogs you'd have to sell to pay for what we were looking at. Dozens? More?

"How the hell does the person running this operation get in?" I muttered. "That four-legged zombie would have its teeth in them as soon as they walked in."

"It's the chain," Dave said abruptly. "We need to get around to the other side of the house."

"It's your show," I said.

We backed away from the window and kept circling the building. As soon as we turned a corner, Dave nodded in satisfaction. "Check it out."

"This setup just keeps getting more elaborate," I said, impressed in spite of myself. The wall boasted a winch right where the chain was attached inside, decked out with one of the highest-quality padlocks I know of. To get in, someone would have to unlock the winch to shorten the chain aggressively before entering, dragging the zombie back near the wall and safely out of range. Then the person, or people, would go through the airlock, keeping the noise and reek of _predator_ from reaching the dogs and driving them insane.

We'd gotten all the footage we could through the windows, barring any changes inside--and any changes inside would probably be bad news for us, since we were trespassing on land owned or used by someone willing to risk a terrorism charge for using a live zombie as a home protection system. Dave and I beat a quick retreat, and within five minutes we'd recovered the jumper cables, relocked the fence door, and rejoined George in the van. We just about had time to get buckled in before she started the van and drove us a couple blocks away.

"Shouldn't we keep an eye on the place?" Dave asked.

George headed into the back of the van and sat at her terminal, getting back to whatever she'd been doing. "We left a few motion-activated cameras, and hopefully got them far enough apart that even if whoever this is has cameras of their own running, they won't pick up all of the places we put ours," she told Dave. He looked skeptical, and George smiled. "Don't worry, they're _really_ unobtrusive. Buffy keeps us equipped with some very sneaky tech." She hit a few keys, getting us a look at the streaming feeds from the cameras. The screen split into several views. "These are set to update the image every minute until something big moves, and then they switch to video. The audio's only basic, but the visuals are reliable."

"How's the research going?" I asked.

"Nothing really useful yet. Do we want to head back to Berkeley and do more work there, or get stuff done here and see if we get lucky?"

"I vote for lucky," Dave said.

George checked the clock. "Okay. We've got four hours until sunset, so I want to start driving back in a couple hours if nothing pops."

Dave and I nodded. George turned back to her screen and Dave started reviewing footage. I fished around in our mini fridge and got us all set up with caffeine and sandwiches, and sat down to check out my own footage.

None of us spoke for an hour or so, and then George broke the silence with a muttered, "Oh, _fuck_ me." She swiveled her chair so she wasn't facing her monitor.

When Dave glanced up, I gave George a wounded look. "I'm sitting right here, George. If you're gonna proposition Dave, could you do it when I'm not around? Mental pictures." I punctuated the request with a light punch to Dave's shoulder. "Nothing personal, dude. I'd just rather not imagine my sister fucking you. Or anyone else."

George flipped me off. "I wouldn't go there, brother mine. I'm pretty sure the _last_ thing you want is for me to take a vow of celibacy. It wouldn't do much for my mood." She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees, rubbing her temple in the way that meant she was trying to fend off a migraine. "Have you met your being-crude quota for the hour? Can we move on to actual problems?"

"Suddenly requiring brain bleach _is_ an actual problem," I said, reaching back to pull the shade on the window and switch the gentle interior lights on.

"It is not _my_ problem if _you_ can't keep your imagination under control, asshole," she retorted, but the grousing was accompanied by a quick, grateful nod.

Dave eyed us. "Yep, working with you two would probably be interesting."

"Buffy swears by having a magazine, headphones, and a good playlist," George said, turning back to her screen. "And for right now, I just IDed the owner of this charming little property, and presumably this operation." Her fingers flew across the keyboard, pulling up a professionally-done photo of a middle-aged man. He was wearing the kind of smile that comes with confidence in your own power, physical or otherwise--like he could afford to be genial and tolerant.

The caption below the picture explained her reaction: we were looking at a councilman from Fairfield, and a particularly well-off one at that, judging by the suit he was wearing.

"Meet Edmund Masterson." George sounded about as impressed as if she'd just discovered roadkill remains stuck to a tire.

"Well, fuck," I said, in a tone similar enough to the one she'd used initially that Dave smiled, although he tried to smother it. "That makes the story bigger."

"But it's not the walk in the park we thought." The grim note was already leaving her voice, right on schedule. Even George is susceptible to not liking the thought of an unexpectedly huge amount of work when she's tired and headachy, but she gets over it lightning-fast when the work in question is a juicy story. She turned to Dave. "It's probably big enough that we _do_ want to team up on it."

Dave asked, "What's the standard around here if we want to keep it simple?"

"Split the revenue evenly and choose where to post, basically," George said. "You'll probably do equally well whichever we opt for. Our team isn't a household name, but enough people know us that our names on your site will probably bring a bit of extra traffic your way, and your name on ours will probably net you about the same number of new click-throughs."

He nodded thoughtfully. "Well, there're two of you, and I've already got the material for the installment we came out here to shoot, _and_ it's not exciting enough visually to be a prime Irwin piece. All in all, I'll vote to guest blog with you guys."

"Done," George said briskly. "We'll keep you posted directly on the financials."

Dave laughed. "Good. But if there's one thing about your reputation that everyone seems to agree on, it's that you're the last person in the world who's gonna fuck me over."

None of us mentioned the rest of his nominal team. He'd explained the situation to me that first night, and I'd filled George in: Dave had moved to town right around when another local Irwin had moved on, so he was filling that gap for a Newsie and Fictional who'd been around for a good few years. None of them expected it to be a long-term arrangement. The only question, he'd said, was whether it'd end with him leaving or with them finding someone who was a better fit over the long haul.

It could've been a convenient story, but George was acquainted with the Newsie in question and said it lined up with the guy's reputation, so she was satisfied by the explanation. Dave doing some work with us wasn't going to ruffle any feathers.

George rechecked the cameras we'd left, and nodded to herself. "Okay. I vote for heading home and knuckling down."

Dave had already spent enough time around us to sound cautious as he said, "Wait, what you were doing for the last hour _wasn't_ knuckling down?"

I clapped him on the arm. "George just spent a week or so bored out of her mind without something to sink her teeth into. Wait until she gets going on this. Trust me, you haven't seen anything yet."

**********

Forty-eight hours later, George had pulled one and a half all-nighters in the name of background checks and history and spontaneous phone interviews with what seemed like half the people Masterson had met in his entire life, followed by fact-checking practically every word out of their mouths. She'd also written and posted an op-ed, the interview with Dave, and yet another brief update on the cattle debates.

Dave and I had long since had the footage and his audio tracks ready to go, and he'd already run his piece on the "abandoned town" aspect of Arcata, so when he stopped by to talk to us about the story in person, I wasn't surprised that he was puzzled about how long things seemed to be taking. "It's not breaking news," I explained after I authorized him with the house computer as a guest, "and there's no sign of competition for it, so George is fact-checking the living hell out of it."

"Because getting even a tiny detail wrong or leaving it open for a challenge means people put less trust in the story, and our guy has staff members devoted to tearing this kind of thing apart," George said from behind us, halfway down the stairs. "Hey, Dave."

"And she thinks dismantling politicians is extra fun," I added.

"Only if they deserve it," she said primly. "You guys are ready, so I'm planning to break the story early tomorrow morning, if that works for you."

Dave nodded. "First news cycle of the day? Fine by me."

"How's your overview of Arcata doing?" George asked him.

"Pretty decent readership numbers," he replied. "A bunch of click-throughs are coming from that interview you posted. But there's something else, too."

"Oh?" By then we'd made it as far as the living room, where George flopped onto the couch. Neither of us tend to get a whole lot of sleep, but she'd been pushing herself ruthlessly since our little venture, and she was exhausted. Half the Newsies in town would've posted the story twenty-four hours ago and not lost any sleep over it.

George isn't wired that way. Half of the reason she wanted to break the story in the morning was because she has at least a shred of self preservation, and knew she'd be doing crisis management in the comments and follow-up as soon as it went live. If she didn't get at least a few hours of sleep first, she'd crash and burn hard.

I was just glad our parents were out. Getting her to take a break is hard enough when we're the only ones home. If they were around, she'd be tense even if we were all in different rooms.

"Do you know Mindy Jordan?" Dave asked.

"Gossip masquerading as news, and everyone knows it," George said dismissively, and then her tone turned wary. "Why?"

The look Dave gave her was more sympathetic than anything. "Apparently it's cause for commentary if you're seen in public with an Irwin other than Shaun. Is _everyone_ in California obsessed with your sex life?"

"Everybody? No. Only about half of the Bay Area bloggers." She scowled. "Turns out reporters are a bunch of gossipy old ladies."

"Yeah, never could've seen _that_ coming," I said.

"Shaun, I swear to God, I will muzzle you." But she didn't sound annoyed, just fried. I shut up. I can handle her in a bitchy mood--and sometimes it's fun to provoke her a little--but it's hard for me to watch her running herself into the ground, no matter how reasonable her arguments for working through the night are.

Dave, in a display of admirable--and not very Irwin-like--common sense, didn't react to her comment. "Is it the kind of gossip that sticks around?"

George shook her head. "Not really. No one'll believe it, anyway. People have fun pretending I don't mean it when I say I don't date, but just about everyone knows better."

"But no vow of celibacy, huh?" he teased.

She smiled faintly. "Well, technically being single doesn't have to mean no sex. But I also don't drink coffee, and yet for some reason no one makes a big deal if I'm seen with a mug in my hand."

"Speaking of caffeine, I need a fix," I said. "How about you guys?"

George gave me a thankful look. "Please."

"Can't," Dave said. "I need to go coordinate with my team. I just wanted to swing by."

"Sure." I stood up to walk him out.

George didn't move; I was pretty sure she wasn't budging until she was ready to get back to her desk. But she did catch our attention with a quick wave. "Hey, Dave?" He raised his eyebrows questioningly. "I assume you know we can't promise anything, but when we're in a position to hire, we'll be calling you. In case that wasn't obvious."

"Awesome," he said. "I had a lot of fun working with you."

"Same," I said.

"So try not to die in the meantime," George finished.

**********

When Dave was gone, I sank down on the couch beside George, handing her a Coke and setting my coffee on the end table. She popped the tab and drank about half of the soda in one go. That was a good sign; when her head's really hurting, she has to either drink her caffeine lukewarm or be more cautious about gulping it. "Thanks," she said, putting the can down so she could lean into me, head heavy on my shoulder.

"How're you holding up?"

"Surviving." She squeezed my arm. "As soon as the story's live, I'll get a whole day's work done on adrenaline."

"Is it wrong that it's kind of a turn-on when you sound so happy about probably destroying someone's career?"

"It'd be different if it were just the dogs. They're illegal, but they're only _potentially_ dangerous. That zombie dog at the door, though..." George shuddered. "That's horrific. I hope Masterson gets nailed to the wall."

"What're the odds?"

"If it turns into a terrorism charge it'll be a federal issue, so the odds are good. If he can manage to keep it from going that far, it'll be closer to a really hard slap on the wrist--if my estimate of how much sway he has with the police is reasonably accurate." A jaw-cracking yawn caught her off guard. "I need to get back to work before I pass out down here," she said.

"Okay. I'll see if Buffy wants to do any last-minute tweaking to the visuals."

"She always does." George let me give her a tug to get her on her feet. I held her for a minute, letting her steady herself against me, and then she picked up her half-full Coke and headed upstairs to put the finishing touches on the story.


End file.
